Monday, April 20, 2009

As an outspoken advocate of the medicinal and recreational benefits of cannabis I have to admit that today completely slipped by me until a friend made me aware of it but to be honest I've never really been big on the whole "420" culture and everything that goes along with it. I think that it's incredibly juvenile while trivializing and undermining the entire legalization effort. Having said that, happy 420 everyone! Smoke it if you've got it.

[Update: Watch tonight's episode of Family Guy. Brian eventually sells out but it speaks the truth about this country's ludicrous drug war.]

[Update II: My good buddy BD sent me this link from a related story on NPR which fictionally visualizes the country a few years after cannabis legalization. A few thoughts:

1. Just as with alcohol, I think that 21 is too old. 18 year olds can drive cars, vote, sign contracts, be tried as adults and die in wars. Let's be fair.

2. Willie Nelson and other people of a certain status in this country may not "worry about going to jail anymore for smoking it" but with 860,000 arrests every year many other Americans still do.

3. If you're spending more time doing anything other than going to class or work, that's most likely a problem.

4. Emergency room admissions are not tracked by the individual drugs involved. In other words if someone drinks a twelve pack of beers, snorts an 8-ball of cocaine, shoots up veins full of heroine and smokes a bit of cannabis before visiting the hospital the medical records read "MARIJUANA" and the government dutifully records it amongst their statistics.